Science

Improving Healthcare, One Search At A Time

1:03pm March 15, 2013

By combing through 100 million search queries on Bing, Yahoo and Google, Microsoft Research Lab co-director Eric Horvitz and his colleagues were able to discover a previously unknown interaction between two commonly prescribed drugs. Horvitz says the method might detect dangerous drug interactions earlier than the FDA's warning system.

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Science

Curiosity Hits Paydirt: New Clues To Life On Mars

1:03pm March 15, 2013

Microbes may once have happily existed on the surface of Mars, according to chemical analysis of a sedimentary rock in the Red Planet's Gale crater. NASA geologist and exobiologist David Blake discusses evidence for an ancient freshwater lake in the crater, and describes the mineral-chomping microbes that may have thrived there.

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Science

Scientist Gets Research Donations From Crowd Funding

11:44am March 15, 2013

by Joe Palca

What do you do when you're a scientist and you have no job and no money for your research? If you're Ethan Perlstein, you try crowd funding. He raised $25,000 to investigate where the drug methamphetamine is stored in the brain.

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Samantha Grimaldo was born with a rare disorder, Perisylvian syndrome, and has never been able to speak.

New Voices For The Voiceless: Synthetic Speech Gets An Upgrade

1:23pm March 13, 2013

by Alix Spiegel

For those who rely on technology to speak, there are a limited number of voices. "Perfect Paul" sounds robotic, and "Heather" can seem too old for some. Now, a researcher is using sound samples from people who have never been able to speak to create new, personalized voices for them.

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Researchers wanted to know if Japanese quail were aware of the colors and patterns on their eggs.

Science

Quick Brown Fox Can't Find Camouflaged Quail Eggs

1:57am March 13, 2013

by Véronique LaCapra

The tiny, speckled eggs of Japanese quail should be easy targets for hungry predators. But these quail have a survival advantage — each goes out of her way, research suggests, to choose a nesting location that best matches the particular color pattern of her eggs.

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Dunkin' Donuts plans to go green by committing to purchasing all of its palm oil from sustainable sources.

Can Dunkin' Donuts Really Turn Its Palm Oil Green?

7:13pm March 12, 2013

by Ilya Marritz

Under pressure from the New York state comptroller — who oversees one of its largest shareholders — the doughnut chain has agreed to set a goal of using only 100 percent sustainable palm oil to make its doughnuts. Production of palm oil has caused serious deforestation in Indonesia.

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Researchers found that exposure to uncivil comments can polarize opinion on news issues.

Science

The 'Nasty Effect': How Comments Color Comprehension

5:56pm March 12, 2013

by NPR Staff

At its best, the Web is a place for unlimited exchange of ideas. But the uncivil discourse that unfolds in comments sections can be poisonous. A study in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication suggests that rude comments on articles can change the way we interpret the news.

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Op-Ed: We Need More Aaron Swartz-Style Hacktivism

3:58pm March 11, 2013

When Internet activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide, he faced federal charges for illegally downloading and releasing articles from JSTOR, the digital library of academic journals. Northwestern University professor Peter Ludlow says Swartz was right to fight for public access to scholarship.

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'Frankenstein's Cat': Bioengineering The Animals Of The Future

1:52pm March 11, 2013

Science journalist Emily Anthes talks about how scientists are engineering mice with tumors and working to create pigs that can grow organs for human transplant and insects that could serve as drones for the military.

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Science

Scientists Make Plans To Blast Threatening Asteroids

7:41pm March 09, 2013

The recent meteor blast in Russia has brought renewed attention to the risk posed by meteors on a collision course with Earth. NASA and the European Space Agency are working on a plan to develop a rocket that could collide with an asteroid and knock it off course. Dr. Andrew Cheng of the John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, who is leading the initiative, talks about it with host Jacki Lyden.

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